First up I trimmed a bit of my Polo Resources (PRL) position, selling £500 per pt at 4.65p. I am now long £3000 per pt. It still looks good value over the longer term but having been oversold, Polo has shot up 25% in the last month & I think it may consolidate around this area for a while at best. If it falls back to 4.25p or lower I will be a buyer again.

The second trade was more speculative, selling the FTSE 100 short £4 per pt @ 5471. Current down about 25 pts on the trade but its a quiet day with the US markets closed. I think there may be a bit more short term general weakness over the next week but will be keeping a v.close eye on this trade and will be applying a strict stop loss!

I also closed out an old, small trade - taking a small profit on the Kier Group (KIE) position. I was looking at building a bigger position here but am not so bullish on the sector or outlook anymore so prefer to concentrate my firepower elsewhere.

The excellent start to the year continues today, Unitech Corporate Parks (UCP), Soco (SIA) and Eros (EROS) continue to edge higher and look good for further gains. On the downside RC Group (RCG) has fallen back today as the company killed speculation that the share overhang issue was soon to be resolved. As a long term holder I continue to be patient! Overall very happy with how 2010 has gone so far. Its good to stack up some profits early on because I feel that the second half of the year will be more difficult.

This year has got off to an excellent start, with the portfolio up around 11% already. Despite such a good start to the year I am, in general, cautious on just how much further the markets can push on. I am not expecting the investing conditions to be as good this year as they were in 2009!

I do think that some individual stocks could really outperform the market and to highlight which ones I am particularly keen on right now I have again entered the StockChallenge.co.uk annual share picking competition. The 5 shares I have chosen that I think will do well over the coming year are:

RC Group (RCG)
Polo Resources (PRL)
Kryso Resources (KYS)
Unitech Corporate Parks (UCP)
Alterian (ALN)

Of course things can’t change radically over the course of the year but for now I think these 5 offer excellent upside, across a range of sectors and geographies.

RC Group (RCG) continues to grow revenues & profits whilst it’s share price lags behind on a lowly rating. I see several opportunities for that to change this year with the resolution of the Nina Wang / Tony Chan legal case being the most obvious. If the share was assigned a standard earnings multiple it could easily double or triple from here & still not look expensive.

Polo Resources (PRL) is my next pick, this is a play on Extract Resources (ASX:EXT) which I expect to be taken out this year at a price considerably higher than its current share price. Polo owns shares in Extract, the value of which is only marginally less than its current market cap. Added to that are its other assets, which I also expect to appreciate in value. Its discount to asset value should be eliminated as it turns those assets into cash if all goes to plan. The share price has the potential to at least double.

Kryso Resources (KYS) is a small cap gold company that is moving towards production over the next couple of years. Valued on the number of Oz’s of gold it has in the ground it looks far too cheap, even given the political & funding issues. If the price of gold remains strong and the up coming feasibility study comes back as expected the share price should move higher over the year, perhaps even to 2 or 3 times its current level.

Next is Unitech Corporate Parks (UCP), I held this one right through last year & reckon it still looks great value here, especially with the commercial property market in India starting to improve. Given UCP’s extreme discount to adjusted NAV (72%) and the probability that they will add value to their projects over the coming year I think the downside is very limited here and the share price could double and it would still be an attractive investment. Management were upbeat in the post result conference call last week, in marked contrast to their commentary over the previous 18 months, and further letting news is expected in the next couple of months. I fully expect the discount to NAV to gradually narrow over the coming year.

Finally is Alterian (ALN), which is one I’ve held in my personal account for a while now. I wanted to have a tech related share to balance to add balance & Alterian won out due to its lower rating versus comparative companies, good earnings growth and its potential to be a takeover target later in the year.

I’m looking forward to coming back to this post at the end of the year to see how it all turned out!

After a fantastic break over Christmas and New Year my feet are firmly underneath the desk and I am getting back into the swing of things. Before looking forward to the year ahead, I am looking back on 2009.

A very fruitful investing year finished with a 96.99% return for 2009, almost doubling my money in a year given the starting capital of £100,000. That meant the total portfolio at year-end stood at £196,987.56. Although off the high for the year (which on October 15th was £202,965.93) given my expectation at the start of 2009 was for a tough year ahead I am delighted at the final return. Some really big winning trades, a few losers and of course the odd missed opportunity that I am still kicking myself about.

Looking at the losers first, the worst single loss was taken on Northern Foods (NFDS) losing £1,450.94 fairly early in the year. A case of bad timing there, selling at pretty near the bottom before the share price bounced back sharply. Fortunately there were not too many losers in 2009, it certainly paid off to not set stop losses too tight and let trades run for as long as possible.

Of course the P&L for the year would have been much better if I hadn’t sold a couple of shares in particular far too early. Topps Tiles (TPT) was one I bought pretty much right at the bottom, around 16p. Unfortuntely I sold it shortly afterwards for a small profit, it then went on to 5 bag right up to 96p. The other big winner sold far too early was Gulf Keystone (GKP), again I was in right near the bottom buying at around 7p. I sold out between 11p and 21p. I good profit but if I’d have held on until 100p+ I could have made over £50,000 more! A costly mis-judgement. In fact in general profits would have been much greater if I’d have held most positions for longer but the market strength continued to surprise me throughout the year.

Of course there were plenty of winners in 2009, the best being the RBS $ prefs which I did hold onto (£6,927.37 profit banked), at least partially, right through 2009. RC Group (RCG) was also a big winner and, surprising me when I checked, my FTSE index & option trades were a big winner too, banking nearly £5k (£4,908.26).

The total return of nearly 100% is also pleasing as I retained a healthy cash balance throughout the year, on average holding about 20% to 25% in cash.

Here’s hoping that in 2010 I can build on the excellent returns of the last year.

A frustrating time over the last week, with the portfolio up, down and all over the place. Some nice gains being offset by some strong fallers.

Globus Maritime (GLBS) has been a star ever since I bought, up over 28% in last week, so much that I have taken a little bit of profit off the table. Its very illiquid & can move quickly in either direction. It still looks cheap to me here & given the big volumes over the last few days clearly other buyers agree with me.

Eros International (EROS) is worth highlighting with a strong move upwards over the last two days. It seems that the large seller may finally be finished and Canaccord Adams reiterated their buy recommendation with a target price of 313p yesterday.

The current volatility is well illustrated by Geong (GNG) & Kryso Resources (KYS), both down about 20% from where they were last week. These type of moves can happen quite often on small caps and its easy to be shaken out of your position. I am confident in the long term prospects of both so I am happy to hold on and in fact added £100 per pt in KYS @ 11p today as some buying came in.

Overall happy with how the portfolio looks right now and am hopeful of a good run for the rest of the month.

…good news out from a couple of holdings this morning.

First Geong International (GNG), a China based software company, reported their interim results for the six month period ended 30 September 2009. The results were better than I expected on nearly all the key metrics & read really well. A positive outlook with a healthy order book and given that the second half of the year is normally better than the first there is the possibility that they will beat current market forecasts, although the company played that down this morning.

The shares are up over 8% today & I am more than happy to keep hold of these as a long term play - the potential here is considerable.

The second bit of news was from Globus Maritime (GLBS), a Greece based shipping company. It announced it had sold another 2 ships leaving them with 2 remaining vessels, both currently chartered out, and a very healthy balance sheet. It looks like management believe that they will be able to buy newer, more attractive vessels at some point in the future at a cheaper valuations. After receiving the proceeds from the ship sales they will have $20m USD in net cash and 2 ships worth a minimum of $50m USD versus a market cap of just $36m USD (based on share price of 73.5p = market cap of £21.23m @ GBPUSD of 1.665). That looks too cheap to me & share price just north of 100p looks justified.

The excellent beans4tea posted about Globus on the Motley Fool message board this morning & his figures match up with mine:

http://boards.fool.co.uk/Message.asp?mid=11765389&sort=whole#11766002

Overall another good day for the portfolio, Kryso Resources (KYS) continues to move strongly upwards - it might be due a retrace soon but I am holding onto my shares for now. Unitech Corporate Parks (UCP) is trying to move out of its trading range today, if it can finally break over 25p it could quickly move to 30p. Lastly, despite good news yesterday out from Eros (EROS) on excellent takings for their new movie, De Dana Dan, and strong buying off the back of it the share price is unchanged. There is still a large seller around but surely they will be finished soon and it certainly looks oversold at these levels and ripe for a bounce back.

I hadn’t visited the www.stockchallenge.co.uk website for a while, so it was a pleasant surprise to see RunningCapital still doing well in the annual challenge, in 58th position, despite one of the five picks Aero Inventory (AI.) going bust! Thankfully it had long since dropped off my watchlist of shares to buy.

For a bit of fun I also entered the December monthly competition. My five picks that I hope to do well this month, all long are:

Kryso Resources (KYS), Eros International (EROS), CSR (CSR), Leisure & Gaming (LNG) and Globus Maritime (GLBS)

Kryso has certainly started the month well and Globus has ticked up a little today. I will check back at the end of the month to see how they performed.

A good start for portfolio in December today, with several holdings up nicely. A good finish to the year would be very welcome.

A disappointing performance in November with a negative performance. The portfolio is now well off its high for the year, by around 10%.

I’ve got some of my recently opened positions wrong and the shares that have performed well over the last few months have mostly underperformed over the last 6 weeks or so.

Eros International (EROS), Polo Resources (PRL) and Hirco (HRCO) are all recent purchases that are all well down, however I still see reasons to hold all three and have recently added to the EROS & PRL positions.

The big disappointment in November was the Niger Uranium (URU) special dividend, this would have generated real value for holders. The share price had already risen in anticipation of the dividend being approved, so when surprising it was voted down the share price was quick to drop back. It was badly handled by management and I got out as quickly as I could at 35p. Fortunately still locking in a good profit but far less than I was expecting. I now prefer to invest in Polo Resources (PRL) to gain exposure to the Extract Resources (ASX:EXT) story.

I remain hopefully of a good December to close the year, traditionally its a strong month for the market but this year being far from typical I don’t think that counts for much!

There are plenty of adjectives that I could use to describe the portfolio performance over the last week, none of them positive and few of them printable without the extensive use of asterisks! An extremely frustrating performance with the value of the portfolio declining as the market has continued to move upwards.

A few shares have moved higher but far too many have stayed static or declined. So I’ve gone back to the portfolio and started to assess each share, thinking about each position as if I didn’t hold already & to decide what action (buy, sell or hold) I should take.

Since the last update I’ve sold Southern Cross, (SCHE), 5000 shares gone at 124.4p for a £94 loss. It has done precisely nothing whilst the market has powered up and I’ve lost patience. A trading statement is due soon and I will look another look at it off the back of that.

I also cut my Unitech Corporate Parks (UCP) position last week. There are still plenty of sellers capping the share price in the 22/23p area but now there are some large trades going through so the stale holders are gradually being cleared out. The trading range of 20p/24p is still intact & on that basis I picked up 10,000 shares @ 19.75p on Monday morning (another 15k was left on the order book unfilled). I am happy to increase my holding at that level or below with the belief that downside is limited below 20p and that there are signs of commercial rental demand improving in India. £226.12 per pt was sold @ 22.5p netting £1058 profit and 10,000 shares bought back at 19.75p Now long £500 (i.e 50,000 shares) per pt and 10,000 shares.

Also being reduced is Dart Group (DTG), trimming the position by £50 per pt, sold @ 53p for a loss of £8.70. Now long £175 per pt. Again there is a persistent seller at 55p and little volume to clear them out, although there was some interest in the shares at the end of last week. Dart, the owners of airline Jet2.com, are due to report interim results on Thursday, 19 November and hopefully that will generate some buying interest as the share still looks cheap to me.

It hasn’t all been selling as I’ve topped up on a couple of tech plays that haven’t fully participated in the market strength over the last month. First up I added £10 per pt to my Telecity (TCY) position @ 337.6p first thing last Wednesday morning. Its moved up nicely since then and I expect it to go higher in anticipation of a bullish trading statement due in the next few weeks. It might look expensive on normal metrics but this is a clear leader in its field with a premium product and great revenue visibility. It deserves its high rating.

I added to my Laird position, getting £20 per pt @ 199.9p. This one can be very volatile and could easily be back at 190p by the end of the next trading session, or equally over 220p (hopefully). With that in mind I sold £10 per pt @ 214p to bank a small £140 profit and am happy to run the rest (total position is 5000 shares). Its struggled to get past the 220p level, so cracking that is the next step and could lead to some really good gains. KBC upgraded LRD to a buy on Monday with a price target of 260p, so I am expecting the trading statement due at the end of the month to be positive, there are expectations of a good bounce back in business since the start of the year, it also has a chunky dividend yield at this price.

The portfolio performance has been held back by recent weakness in RCG Holdings (RCG) which has fallen back from the high 80’s to the low 80’. As a long term hold I am ignoring these price fluctuations, as the gains could be very considerable from here with the share so lowly rated whilst business performance continues to impress.

Recent purchases, Geong (GNG) and Platinum Australia (PLAA), are helping offset the RCG weakness as they are both nicely in profit now. I’ve also increased my holdings in Eros International (EROS) and Leisure and Gaming (LNG) in recent days. Eros seems to be consolidating just below the 200p level that its failed to get over a couple of times recently, I am expecting it to have another go soon.

Leisure and Gaming’s (LNG) Q3 update last week impressed me, costs are firmly under control and it emerged from its weakest quarter with a small profit despite adverse sports betting results. These things always even themselves out and Q4 looks to have got off to a good start. I believe that business momentum will really pick up over the next six months and a simple buy & hold approach will see some very good rewards. I am looking for the share price to be in the mid 20p range come next summer, which would be a very satisfying 150% return from the current level.

I continue to review the positions I currently hold and there may be further sales over the rest of the week, I need to get the recent under performance to the market turned around quickly.

The portfolio is up again today on a quiet day for news. Pretty much sitting on my positions right now but I have decided to take my profits on the Man Group position (EMG) this afternoon. They have been on a great run since their trading statement a couple of weeks ago and are up 15% in double quick time and a quick gain here was hard to turn down. The sale banked a £460 profit (15%).

I’ve also trimmed some more of the Dialight position (DIA), selling 1000 shares @ 207p to book a £710 profit (52.6%). Now running with 2500 shares which seems about right given the rapid run up here, I’d be inclined to add to my position on a large fall which I am not ruling out as it can be volatile.

My last trade is some portfolio insurance, buying some exposure to S&P 500 990 put option via a spreadbet. With volatility being very low this is a relatively cheap way of getting some downside protection. It expires in mid December so clearly its a bet on a decent fall in the market over the next 4-6 weeks. If it expires worthless then hopefully the portfolio will have gone up more than enough to compensate.

Good to see Telecity moving up today (TCY), seems like its gathering some momentum, hoping for a bullish trading statement here soon. Also heading upwards are Geong (GNG), a decent profit building with this small cap software play now, and Niger Uranium (URU) continues its recent revival.

The FTSE 100/250 is making new highs for the year again today and looking strong. Which makes me nervous as I detect more and more complacency in the market. I will continue to top slice and trade around the portfolio where I see opportunities and gradually look to reduce exposure if the market continues to move higher. There are several stale positions in the portfolio that I should perhaps cut too, I’d hate to give back a lot of the gains accumulated so far this year.

A good finish to the week on Friday with the portfolio cracking the 100% gain for the year. No trades, just letting existing positions run.

A jump in the share price Niger Uranium (URU) helped boost the portfolio, Extract Resources (ASX:EXT) uranium resource just keeps getting better & better and it looks like there is a lot more value here still. Elsewhere it was a quiet Friday

Fingers crossed that the gains can continue into this week.